“Warming of the climate system is unequivocal, and since the 1950s many of the observed changes are unprecedented over decades to millennia”

“Each of the past three decades was successively warmer at the Earth’s surface than any preceding decade since 1850. In the Northern Hemisphere 1983-2012 was likely the warmest 30-year period of the last 1400 years.”

The policymakers’ summary is easy to read, even though the facts asserted are stark. The problem is getting policymakers, and the public, to read what the scientists say and then translate the science into actions that will both mitigate climate change and help people adapt to the emerging new world which civilization has created for itself.